The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008): USA

Reviewed by Byron Potau

The Summer’s most anticipated film, The Dark Knight, finally arrived late last night and my reaction was… well, a bit mixed.  Even in a year of comic book hero movies this film seems to stand aside on its own.  Notice I did not say stand out.  The film lives up to the “dark” in its title but does not give the sense of truly achieving its full down note.  Yet, if the film is not an enjoyable whole, it does have some enjoyable pieces.

The film picks up with new District Attorney Harvey Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart, as the city’s new symbol goodness and righteousness while Batman, played by Christian Bale, has to deal with the criminals on an everyday basis as well as the occasional copycat vigilante.  As Dent, Batman, and Lt. Gordon, played by a restrained Gary Oldman, join forces to put the city’s mob away, up and coming criminal Joker, played by Heath Ledger, does what he can to destroy their plans and bring as much chaos and mayhem to the city as possible.  Added to this are Bruce Wayne’s feelings for D.A. Rachel Dawes, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, which are accelerated by her budding romance with Dent, and his desire to give up his alter ego and replace it with a more acceptable symbol of justice in the form of Dent’s crusading D.A.

The film is overlong with a little drag, and does not seem to hit the right notes, leaving the viewer uncertain, as if the film really has not come to its resolution.  Like its predecessor, Batman Begins, it leaves you with the feeling that the next film in the series will be a lot better.  This film does correct the one glaring weakness from the previous film and that is the horrible miscasting of Katie Holmes as D.A. Rachel Dawes.  Now played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, the character is given some believability by her more assured acting.  The rest of the cast are solid with newcomer Aaron Eckhart fitting in nicely in the role of Harvey Dent.  The hot topic of discussion in any review of this film will be the performance of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker.  It would be likely that whatever his performance it would be overly praised simply because of his untimely death.  However, I am here to tell you that his performance is worth every bit of praise it receives.  Far from the cartoony Jack Nicholson portrayal of the Joker, Ledger goes for a more realistic, psychopathic portrayal which is at times truly frightening.  The film comes to life whenever he is in the scene and our eyes are glued to him, closely watching his hunched walk and every lick of his lips completely mesmerized.  Though circumstances being what they are, we may have the first posthumous Oscar awarded next year since Peter Finch in Network, and if so, it would be well deserved and a bittersweet end to a brief and promising career.

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Published:
07.19.08 / 5pm
Category:
Films